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MOUNT_UNIONFS(8) FreeBSD System Manager's Manual MOUNT_UNIONFS(8)
NAMEmount_unionfs -- mount union file systems
SYNOPSISmount_unionfs [-br] [-ooptions] directoryuniondirDESCRIPTION
The mount_unionfs utility attaches directory above uniondir in such a way
that the contents of both directory trees remain visible. By default,
directory becomes the upper layer and uniondir becomes the lower layer.
The options are as follows:
-b Deprecated. Use -obelow instead.
-o Options are specified with the -o flag followed by an option.
The following options are available:
below Inverts the default position, so that directory becomes
the lower layer and uniondir becomes the upper layer.
However, uniondir remains the mount point.
copymode=traditional|transparent|masquerade
Specifies the way to create a file or a directory in the
upper layer automatically when needed. The traditional
mode uses the same way as the old unionfs for backward
compatibility, and transparent duplicates the file and
directory mode bits and the ownership in the lower layer
to the created file in the upper layer. For behavior of
the masquerade mode, see MASQUERADEMODE below.
whiteout=always|whenneeded
Specifies whether whiteouts should always be made in the
upper layer when removing a file or directory or only
when it already exists in the lower layer.
udir=mode
Specifies directory mode bits in octal for masquerade
mode.
ufile=mode
Specifies file mode bits in octal for masquerade mode.
gid=gid
Specifies group for masquerade mode.
uid=uid
Specifies user for masquerade mode.
To enforce file system security, the user mounting a file system must be
superuser or else have write permission on the mounted-on directory. In
addition, the vfs.usermountsysctl(8) variable must be set to 1 to permit
file system mounting by ordinary users. However, note that transparent
and masquerade modes require vfs.usermount to be set to 0 because this
functionality can only be used by superusers.
Filenames are looked up in the upper layer and then in the lower layer.
If a directory is found in the lower layer, and there is no entry in the
upper layer, then a shadow directory will be created in the upper layer.
The ownership and the mode bits are set depending on the copymode option.
In traditional mode, it will be owned by the user who originally did the
union mount, with mode 0777 (``rwxrwxrwx'') modified by the umask in
effect at that time.
If a file exists in the upper layer then there is no way to access a file
with the same name in the lower layer. If necessary, a combination of
loopback and union mounts can be made which will still allow the lower
files to be accessed by a different pathname.
Except in the case of a directory, access to an object is granted via the
normal file system access checks. For directories, the current user must
have access to both the upper and lower directories (should they both
exist).
Requests to create or modify objects in uniondir are passed to the upper
layer with the exception of a few special cases. An attempt to open for
writing a file which exists in the lower layer causes a copy of the
entire file to be made to the upper layer, and then for the upper layer
copy to be opened. Similarly, an attempt to truncate a lower layer file
to zero length causes an empty file to be created in the upper layer.
Any other operation which would ultimately require modification to the
lower layer fails with EROFS.
The union file system manipulates the namespace, rather than individual
file systems. The union operation applies recursively down the directory
tree now rooted at uniondir. Thus any file systems which are mounted
under uniondir will take part in the union operation. This differs from
the union option to mount(8) which only applies the union operation to
the mount point itself, and then only for lookups.
MASQUERADE MODE
When a file (or a directory) is created in the upper layer, the
masquerade mode sets it the fixed access mode bits given in ufile (for
files) or udir (for directories) option and the owner given in udir and
gid options, instead of ones in the lower layer. Note that in the
masquerade mode and when owner of the file or directory matches one spec-
ified in uid option, only mode bits for the owner will be modified. More
specifically, the file mode bits in the upper layer will be (mode in the
lower layer) OR (mode given in ufile AND 0700), and the ownership will be
the same as one in the lower layer.
The default values for ufile, udir, uid, and gid are as follow:
+o If none of ufile and udir were specified, access mode bits in the
mount point will be used.
+o If none of uid and gid were specified, ownership in the mount point
will be used.
+o If one of udir or ufile is not specified, the value of the other
option will be used.
+o If one of uid or gid is not specified, the value of the other option
will be used.
EXAMPLES
The commands
mount -t cd9660 -o ro /dev/cd0 /usr/src
mount -t unionfs -o noatime /var/obj /usr/src
mount the CD-ROM drive /dev/cd0 on /usr/src and then attaches /var/obj on
top. For most purposes the effect of this is to make the source tree
appear writable even though it is stored on a CD-ROM. The -onoatime
option is useful to avoid unnecessary copying from the lower to the upper
layer.
The commands
mount -t cd9660 -o ro /dev/cd0 /usr/src
chown 2020 /usr/src
mount -t unionfs -o noatime -o copymode=masquerade -o uid=builder \
-o udir=755 -o ufile=644 /var/obj /usr/src
also mount the CD-ROM drive /dev/cd0 on /usr/src and then attaches
/var/obj on top. Furthermore, the owner of all files and directories in
/usr/src is a regular user with UID 2020 when seen from the upper layer.
Note that for the access mode bits, ones in the lower layer (on the CD-
ROM, in this example) are still used without change. Thus, write privi-
lege to the upper layer can be controlled independently from access mode
bits and ownership in the lower layer. If a user does not have read
privilege from the lower layer, one cannot still read even when the upper
layer is mounted by using masquerade mode.
The command
mount -t unionfs -o noatime -o below /sys $HOME/sys
attaches the system source tree below the sys directory in the user's
home directory. This allows individual users to make private changes to
the source, and build new kernels, without those changes becoming visible
to other users. Note that the files in the lower layer remain accessible
via /sys.
SEE ALSOintro(2), mount(2), unmount(2), fstab(5), mount(8), mount_nullfs(8)HISTORY
The mount_unionfs utility first appeared in 4.4BSD.
The -r option for hiding the lower layer completely was removed in
FreeBSD 7.0 because this is identical to using mount_nullfs(8).
AUTHORS
In FreeBSD 7.0, Masanori OZAWA <ozawa@ongs.co.jp> reimplemented handling
of locking, whiteout, and file mode bits, and Hiroki Sato
<hrs@FreeBSD.org> wrote about the changes in this manual page.
BUGS
THIS FILE SYSTEM TYPE IS NOT YET FULLY SUPPORTED (READ: IT DOESN'T WORK)
AND USING IT MAY, IN FACT, DESTROY DATA ON YOUR SYSTEM. USE AT YOUR OWN
RISK. BEWARE OF DOG. SLIPPERY WHEN WET.
This code also needs an owner in order to be less dangerous - serious
hackers can apply by sending mail to <freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.org> and
announcing their intent to take it over.
Without whiteout support from the file system backing the upper layer,
there is no way that delete and rename operations on lower layer objects
can be done. EROFS is returned for this kind of operations along with
any others which would make modifications to the lower layer, such as
chmod(1).
Running find(1) over a union tree has the side-effect of creating a tree
of shadow directories in the upper layer.
The current implementation does not support copying extended attributes
for acl(9), mac(9), or so on to the upper layer. Note that this may be a
security issue.
A shadow directory, which is one automatically created in the upper layer
when it exists in the lower layer and does not exist in the upper layer,
is always created with the superuser privilege. However, a file copied
from the lower layer in the same way is created by the user who accessed
it. Because of this, if the user is not the superuser, even in
transparent mode the access mode bits in the copied file in the upper
layer will not always be the same as ones in the lower layer. This
behavior should be fixed.
FreeBSD 11.1 November 30, 2006 FreeBSD 11.1